Just as the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to good intentions is often paved with hell. That’s how it feels, at least, as I ascend a giant sand dune at Dilisha Beach on the Indian Ocean island of Socotra at a pace a narcoleptic snail would probably blush at.

Solitude: You won’t find many other tourists in the coves of Socotra

Step after faltering step, I heave myself up the shifting edifice towards the coveted view until, finally – just as my lungs and legs threaten to simultaneously wave the white flag – I reach the summit. After reflecting on my coronary near-miss for a good minute or so, I finally take the time to look around.

The rest of my group are hidden along with our battered Toyota Landcruiser in the folds of the ravine. The jagged peaks the dune leans on cast eerie shadows over the sand below me and the ocean bleeds seamlessly into the blue horizon. A fishing dhow (a masted boat, to non-arabic speakers) lingers for a few moments then drifts around a headland and disappears. There’s not another living thing in sight and the 400km that separates me from the south coast of Arabia could just as well be a thousand. The world feels very far away.

Isolation comes naturally to Socotra. Although it has belonged to Yemen since the late 1960s, the archipelago is the definition of a land apart. Cast adrift from the mainland more than 6million years ago, this far-flung outpost is not paradise lost. It’s barely even paradise found. Yet it is now attracting a steady trickle of explorers enticed by one of the most impressive ecosystems on the planet.

The Galapagos may be the world’s most vaunted destination for wildlife explorers but Socotra runs it pretty close. Almost 35 per cent of its flora is unique, along with a significant percentage of its birdlife and almost all of its few reptiles. You don’t have to be an aspiring David Bellamy to appreciate the place, however.

The main island, roughly the size of Majorca but with 99.9 per cent fewer tourists, has an unspoilt landscape which takes in rugged mountains, vast tablelands, powder-soft white sand beaches and pristine coral formations. It’s easy to see why Yemen is pushing it as a means of re-establishing a tourism infrastructure blitzed by civil war, terrorist insurrection and an unfortunate tendency among its tribal communities to kidnap western tourists for ransom money.

It’s not luxuriantly bearded men with guns that are worrying me as our vehicle pulls out of the island’s flyblown capital Hadibu and heads into the hills. The main danger to tourists in Socotra is the healthy shark population in the surrounding seas. And it’s the after effects of the previous day’s induction into the ways of khat. The shrub is a national obsession in Yemen, and most of the male population and a fair proportion of the females spend every afternoon getting high by chewing truckloads of the mildly intoxicating leaves.

A sense of heightened awareness and a torrent of verbal diarrhoea is the usual result. Hallucinations are not unheard of and I feel as though my mind is playing tricks on me as the barmy botanical quirks of the island start to reveal themselves.

First we encounter the Socotran desert rose, a bottom-heavy and smooth-skinned anomaly with a frizzy pink buzz-cut that could have sprung from the imaginings of Salvador Dali. Next up are the dragon’s blood trees, the island’s most famous native plant. Resembling a forest of randomly scattered giant green toadstools, they are equally psychedelic.

Getting weirded out by plants is not the only way to pass the time on Socotra. The Haghier mountains that dominate the centre of the island offer prime unexplored walking territory, with many visitors spending up to seven days hiking obscure trails. On the coast, there is a host of diving sites and a snorkelling expedition at the marine-protected area at Dihamri will reveal rays, turtles and phalanxes of technicolour fish.

On the other hand, you could just kick back, crack open a bottle of Islamic Becks beer and revel in the scenery and the solitude. Whether that involves scaling an oversized mound of sand for a better vista is entirely a matter for choice.

Duncan Forgan flew to Sana’a from London Heathrow with Yemenia Airlines (www.yemenia.com). Return flights start at around £400. Felix Airways (www.felixairways.com) run connecting flights from Sana’a to Socotra. Returns start from £155. Itineraries on Socotra, including accommodation, guides and food, can be arranged through Murjan Travel http://www.griffin-ltd.com/murjan

BARE ESSENTIALSThe Socotran archipelago is situated 400km south of mainland Yemen. Its capital city Hadibu is where tourist amenities such as guides, internet, accommodation and shops can be found.

Language:Socotrans mainly converse in the ancient south Arabian language of Socotri, but Arabic is widely spoken